


I Was Feeling Such A Mess [I Thought You'd Leave Me Behind]

by deferney



Series: Retain Series [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Minor Character Death, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 20:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1912095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deferney/pseuds/deferney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The card is in the shape of a hand turkey, and when Derek opens it, he sees that Stiles has drawn them as dinosaurs hunting turkeys for the Thanksgiving feast. He gets so mad at himself he crumbles the turkey card and throws it on the ground, and immediately feels so bad he cries as he tries to smooth it out. He puts it on his bedside table, and vows to never ditch Stiles again, no matter how much he doesn’t understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Was Feeling Such A Mess [I Thought You'd Leave Me Behind]

**Author's Note:**

> This is the backstory to a story I wrote called Retain! If you'd like, go ahead and read that as well, and let me know if you want me to move the story forward! Thanks. :)  
> PS, the title comes from a song by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes called That's What's Up. Check it out if you're feeling up to some musical awesomeness :P

Stiles has been around for as long as Derek can remember.

Logically, Derek knows there were three years of his life he spent completely without Stiles, but he barely remembers them. In fact, he barely remembers Claudia until she was pregnant with Stiles. Once her baby bump became obvious, it was like she was always around.

He remembers the day his mom told him Claudia was having a baby.

“A baby?” His nose wrinkled. “Why would she want one of _those_?”

They’d had a baby the previous year, Cora, and she was Derek’s worst nightmare. All she did was cry and poop.

Talia laughed at her son’s exasperation. “Well, baby, she wants a bigger family.”

“As big as our family?” It seemed like having two families the size of the Hales at Sunday Breakfasts would be way too many to fit in the Hale House.

His mother shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s for her to decide. But you be sure to be good for her when she watches you and your sisters--being pregnant is hard enough.”

Derek need not be reminded; he knew how mean his Mom had gotten when she’d been pregnant and he and Laura had fought.

“Why doesn’t Henry watch us then, Mama?” He asks. Henry, his eldest brother, is thirteen now; he can handle four younger siblings, Derek thinks. It’s not like Cora does much, and his second eldest brother Michael likes to sit in his room and read.

“Because if he watches you four, all you’ll eat is cereal all day.” Derek didn’t see a problem with that at three years old, though looking back he’s glad he had Claudia around.

When Stiles was finally born, it was like everything in Derek’s life got louder, and brighter, and better. Stiles wasn’t a whiny baby like Cora; he liked to watch people with his huge amber eyes, and he was always smiling. And, most importantly, he loved Derek. From the moment Stiles could crawl, he gravitated towards the older boy--and when he began walking, well that was an entirely new ball game.

So the Hales and the Stilinskis were like two peas in a pod: two pleasant, well off families with lots of laughter and love in their daily life.

And then Derek started school.

He liked the idea of growing up, until he realized Stiles wasn’t going there with him. Stiles was only three, sure, but he was finally starting to talk in a way that Derek understood, and he was getting better with his speech skills. He barely stuttered anymore.

But instead of getting to help Stiles talk, and playing dinosaurs with him, and watching cartoons with him, he had to go to school.

He didn’t mind getting up early, which Laura always complained about, and he was okay with naptime, which Boyd [his only friend] hated. He just hated how long school was, how all of the fun stuff he learned about, he couldn’t explain to Stiles, or teach him. No matter how hard he tried.

The one time he did try to teach Stiles about how to write, Stiles couldn’t hold the pencil correctly, and Derek got so frustrated he threw the pencil--only, it bounced off the wall directly to their left and slapped Stiles in the face. Derek cried more than Stiles did, and wailed apologies from his Time Out Corner.

It got better when Stiles started school with him, even though Stiles was only in first grade and he was in fourth. They still had recess together, and Derek made sure they always sat together for school events. Sometimes he got weird looks for it, but the Hales always sat together, and Stiles was a Hale by default, because he was the only Stilinski in the school.

So Stiles learned to write, and Derek got suspended for punching the kid that was bullying Stiles, and everything was going swimmingly.

Until Derek had to go to middle school. Derek, who’d spent three year of school without Stiles and had already been through the rough patch of academic separation from one’s best friend, was shocked at how badly Stiles took it.

“Derek,” Stiles cried [and damnit Derek hated when he did that], arms wrapped tightly around his best friend, “How am I supposed to go to school without you?”

“What are you so afraid of?” Talia had asked. Derek didn’t know it then, but his mother always knew when something was going on with Stiles--something he wasn’t letting on about. He did it pretty often, had gotten quieter over the year. “What happens when Derek leaves?”

He sniffled, rubbed his eyes, and took in a heaving, stuttered breath, before reply, “I’m alone.”

“Alone?” Derek rolled his eyes. There were a ton of kids going into the third grade; Stiles wouldn’t be alone.

Stiles, ever-sensitive to his best friend, jerks away from Derek with angry eyes. He doesn’t know how to respond. Stiles has never been mad at him before.

“What do you mean alone, sweetheart?” His mother’s tone is non-judgemental, assessing.

“I don’t have any friends,” Stiles finally says. “Derek is my only friend at school.”

And, oh. Derek hadn’t thought of that.

Claudia’s voice rings from the kitchen, where she’s making finger sandwiches. The Hale/Stilinski Pod is having a picnic that day. “Is that why Ms. Amy mentioned you not participating in class, Stiles?”

For some reason, that question rubbed Derek the wrong way. He wrapped his arm around Stiles, the same way arms had been wrapped around him a moment before. Stiles doesn’t respond, instead secures his arms around Derek’s shoulders.

Talia rolls her eyes with a smile, “Our sons are being adorable again.”

Claudia walks in, two spoons and a bowl of ice cream in her hand. The boys sit, arms still entangled, until the ice cream is in front of them. For every two bites Stiles takes, Derek takes one, because he knows that chocolate ice cream is Stiles’ favorite.

“You have to make friends, Stiles,” Derek says. Talia and Claudia both seem surprised, having decided the conversation would be buried under a sugar high.

Stiles nods, sad, like he knows Derek’s right, but hates admitting it. “I know...I’m just gonna miss you a lot.”

Derek rolls his eyes, “I went through three years of school without you--it’s only fair you do some without me.”

And so the school year started.

And middle school sucked _balls_. Well, first, Derek started sprouting hair in weird places. And then he just smelled, all the time, and Stiles was stupid and didn’t understand what was going on because he hadn’t experienced it yet, and for the first time in Derek’s life, he didn’t want to be around Stiles.

When Stiles was supposed to come over, the weekend before Thanksgiving break was due to end, Derek couldn’t stand the sight of his tiny, hairless, soap-smelling friend. He spent the weekend at Boyd’s, and when he came back, Cora tells him of the fort she and Stiles built by the creek out on the Hale property.

Quietly, much quieter than she bragged about her building ideas, Cora said, “He was really sad that you left before you could see him. He made you a card for Thanksgiving at school. I put it on your bed.”

The dinner table is more subdued after that, mostly because everyone else seems to know something that Derek doesn’t.

The card is in the shape of a hand turkey, and when Derek opens it, he sees that Stiles has drawn them as dinosaurs hunting turkeys for the Thanksgiving feast. He gets so mad at himself he crumbles the turkey card and throws it on the ground, and immediately feels so bad he cries as he tries to smooth it out. He puts it on his bedside table, and vows to never ditch Stiles again, no matter how much he doesn’t understand.

They don’t tell him Claudia is sick until winter break, because Stiles spends Christmas with them, and Stiles is Jewish, so he never spends Christmas with them.

While Talia would normally tell Derek, she can barely say Claudia’s name without tearing up, so his father, Nathan, breaks the news.

“She’s very sick,” he says. “She’s been in the hospital since Thanksgiving, and they don’t know much longer she’s going to make it. It’s a very strong cancer, but they’re doing everything they can. They didn’t celebrate Channukah, and the Sheriff doesn’t want Stiles to feel alone, so he’s going to spend Christmas, and probably the rest of the break with us.”

Derek understands. He feels even worse for ditching Stiles, after he finds out about Claudia’s illness.

When Stiles walks through the door, Derek bolts off the steps and launches himself at his best friend.

He might cry a little.

“I’m sorry for not being here on during Thanksgiving break when you came to see me,” he says. Wants to say a lot of things, but doesn’t know how.

Stiles hugs him back. “It’s okay. It was fun to hangout with Cora, even though she doesn’t play dinosaurs right.”

Stiles spends Christmas with them, and he smiles when he sees that Derek has the Turkey Card on display in his room. They don’t talk about his mother.

The cancer is slow, and horrific, and Claudia isn’t put out of her misery until Derek is going to be a freshmen in high school. The funeral is a week into September, and Derek sits behind Stiles at the mass, and stands behind him at the burial. He watches Stiles, barely eleven, hug people, and let them cry on him, without crying himse. It makes Derek uncomfortable, and angry.

Derek gets sad when he thinks about starting high school without Stiles. By then, Stiles has made friends--Scott, Malia, and Lydia--and he doesn’t even blink at starting middle school without Derek.

He does, however, tell Derek when some asshat named Jackson starts bullying him. Derek can’t beat the kid up this time, so he does the next best thing; he teaches Stiles how to beat the kid up.

How sterotypical of them: to start fighting because of bullying.

Derek joins the wrestling team that year, while he and Stiles take kick-boxing classes. They’re in different age groups, but they still practice together. He likes wrestling more than standing, but Stiles isn’t into wrestling, so Derek keeps training with him.

Some days, Stiles is his usual self, laughing and forgetting to keep his hands up to his face, and always bouncing on his toes. Other days, he’s silent, punches coming out in swift movements, hands loosely curled into fists in front of his cheeks. Derek is scared of Stiles those days.

His sexuality never came into question in high school, until he was a senior.

He trained Stiles the entire summer to make sure he made the wrestling team. By then, Derek and Stiles realized what they liked had a name: Mixed Martial Arts. Professional fighting. Training to hit things. Getting paid to beat people. Both of them wanted to do it, wanted to succeed together.

It was then, when they were on the wrestling team together, sitting together at lunch, when Derek was giving Stiles rides to and from school, that Derek realized he wasn’t asexual, or bisexual, or heterosexual, or homosexual. He was _Stiles-sexual_.

The only person he wanted to spend everyday with, all of his time with, was Stiles. [Of course, he later came to realize he was gay, that he could admit that other guys were attractive, and that if Stiles’ soul and mind were in their body, he’d probably love them. It was more like he was homosexual, and Stiles-romantic.]

It’s his last day of school, when he’s bringing Stiles home for the last time, that he gets down and walks Stiles to his front door. Stiles is obviously weirded out by it.

“Are you okay? Do you want to come in? I just got a couple new PC games we can try out--I know they’re not really your thing. Or do you have your gloves? I have kick-boxing at seven, but we could work on my combos for a bit so I don’t have to listen to Matt bitch at me for being too slow--even though I’m the fastest person _in my age group_ \--”

“I like you,” Derek blurts out. Oh, god. He’s doomed. “A lot. I like you. In a...not-just-friends, kind of way. Even though you’re fourteen. And you still haven’t hit your growth spurt.”

Nice, Derek. Real smooth.

Stiles just laughs, throws his head back as he does it. When he’s done, and Derek is feeling sufficiently embarrassed, Stiles unlocks his front door, and walks in. Derek follows him.

“Well aren’t you going to say anything?” Derek demands. He’s feeling insecure. And pathetic.  And also a little creepy.

“Of course you like me, you idiot,” Stiles rolls his eyes. He rummages through the freezer until he pulls out Rocky Road ice cream, and pulls two spoons from the dishwasher.

When he doesn’t continue, Derek, flustered, stutters out, “Well--Well do you like me?”

He opens the gallon of ice cream, tosses a spoon to Derek. “Of course I like you, you idiot.”

And the rest, to Derek, is irrelevant. Because Stiles likes him.

The night before he’s due to have a press conference and announce his official gay-ness to the UFC world, he sits with Stiles on the couch, eating ice cream. For every two bites of plain chocolate ice cream Stiles takes, Derek takes one.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written over the course of an hour or so, without an read-throughs once I finished it; there will be a ton of typos and sentence mishaps! Please point them out to me! It's 1AM and my writing brain is fried, but I wanted to get this out there. If you think there should be any additional tags just let me know, otherwise I hope you enjoyed :)  
> -Def


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